Re “Next Sunday: ‘Corporations Hijack Democracy,’ Says Democracy School”
(See pdf here.)
[img]1323|left|Mr. Stephen Murray||no_popup[/img]Explaining why participants in his first Democracy School program last Sunday at the Vets Auditorium embraced an anti-fracking ordinance he hopes Culver City residents will support, Stephen Murray said this afternoon:
“We want to reclaim our rights to health and safety. We want to make sure that the rights of corporations are not greater than our rights.”
The director of Baldwin Hills Oil Watch said that the Residents’ Rights ordinance (accompanying this story) is a preliminary document.
The intention of Mr. Murray’s group is for the ordinance to grow into a more muscular document, an amendment to the City Charter. He promised that the newer version “will be stronger, more encompassing.”
Ultimately, the group’s objective is to place the measure on the ballot for Culver City voters to determine its value.
“In large part,” Mr. Murray told the newspaper, “this represents the coordinated work of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. They wrote the original Pittsburgh ordinance,” the first Residents’ Rights manifesto, “in alliance with the Global Exchange. (See the nearby story, “Looking for Help on Fracking Rules? Find the Nearest Mirror.”)
“Locally,” he said, “it has been touched by quite a few community members and experts – including members of Citizens Coalition for a Safe Community, Baldwin Hills Oil Watch and Transition Culver City. This type of Community Rights ordinance has been used in over 150 communities. The purpose is to assert the predominance of community rights. Fifteen of them have related to fracking.”
Alluding to the design of the proposed initiative, Mr. Murray said that “this initial version represents the basic structure, the rights, the minimal prohibitions to protect our rights.”
